\ r1 


■\W  ' S'© . 


U V ‘.  * ‘ • • 


v®4i  a-'*® 

Medical  Mission^''®'* 


ISABELLA  BIRD  BISHOP. 

We  have  received  permission  to  print  the 
following  valuable  article  by  Mrs.  Isabella 
Bird  Bishop,  whose  charming  books  of  travel 
have  made  friends  for  her  in  many  homes.  It 
was  read  in  the  Woman’s  Congress  at  the 
World’s  Fair  in  1893,  and  while  it  was  incor- 
porated in  the  report  of  that  Congress,  it  has 
not  been  printed,  as  a whole,  in  any  periodical 
except  Mission  Studies.  Mrs.  Bishop’s  per- 
sonal observation  in  many  lands  gives  weight 
to  her  words,  and  her  testimony  is  the  more 
valuable  because  it  is  given  from  the  stand- 
point of  an  intelligent  and  unprejudiced  trav 
eller. 

IT  is  as  a traveller  that  I am  to  address 
this  audience,  and  as  one  who  has 
been  converted  from  indifferentism 
to  the  duty  and  importance  of  mission- 
ary effort  by  seeing  in  the  foreign  mission 
field  the  work  and  influence  of  the  con- 
secrated lives  of  Christian  men  and  wo- 
men, many  of  them  citizens  of  your  great 
republic.  In  four  years  and  a half  of 
Asiatic  travelling  during  most  of  which 


time  I have  lived  among  the  people  with 
an  interpreter,  I have  learned  of  the  sore 
needs  of  the  unchristianized  world,  with 
its  sorrows  and  its  sins. 

Here  and  in  Britain,  those  who  stay  at 
home  and  help  missions  naturally  dwell 
more  on  the  work  done— to  me  it  is  the 
work  undone  which  bulks  appallingly, 
the  ten  hundred  and  thirty  millions  with- 
out Christianity  nineteen  centuries  after 
His  birth,  and  the  awful  fact  that  in  spite 
of  the  increased  activity  of  the  church, 
heathenism  has  so  gained  upon  our  ef- 
forts that  while  something  like  four  mil- 
lions of  persons  have  received  baptism 
on  making  a Christian  profession  within 
this  century,  the  natural  increase  of  the 
world’s  non-Christian  population  has  been 
two  hundred  millions  in  the  same  time. 
It  may  be  that  “the  times  of  this  ignor- 
ance God  winked  at,”  when  our  knowl- 
age  was  but  of  the  fringe  of  heathendom, 
but  in  our  age,  when  travelers  have 
scarcely  left  any  region  untouched,  and 
Geographical.  Ethnographical,  and  An- 


3 


thropological  societies  bring  the  knowl- 
edge of  "Dark  Continents’’  and  the  con- 
dition of  their  peoples  to  our  very  doors, 
apathy  or  half  heartedness  is  without  ex- 
cuse, and  our  responsibility  is  vastly  in- 
creased by  our  enlightenment. 

On  no  point  is  our  modern  information 
more  explicit  than  on  the  amount  of  suf- 
fering which  is  everywhere  the  result  of 
native  methods  of  medical  treatment, 
and  in  little  more  than  half  a century,  the 
church,  waking  up  at  last  to  see  that  in 
order  to  do  her  Lord’s  work  she  must 
adopt  her  Lord’s  methods,  has  increased 
her  number  of  medical  missionaries  from 
something  under  ten,  to  three  hundred 
and  fifty-nine,  seventy-four  of  whom  are 
women,  all  pledged  to  the  Master's 
double  command,  “Heal  the  sick,  and 
preach  the  Gospel.’’  But  what  are  they 
among  so  many? 

But  what  does  illness  usually  mean  in 
non-Ghristian  lands?  We  must  remem- 
ber that  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
'-he  heathen  world,  illness  is  believed  to 


4 


be  the  work  of  demons,  or  more  correct- 
ly a form  of  demonical  possession,  and  a 
sick  person  is  an  object  of  loathing  as 
well  as  of  fear.  The  house  is  regarded 
as  polluted  by  his  presence,  in  many  lands 
he  is  removed  to  an  out-building  where 
he  is  supplied  once  a day  with  food  and 
water,  and  he  is  shunned  by  his  nearest 
relations. 

If  his  healing  is  desired,  the  doctors 
and  priests  are  summoned  gongs  and 
drums  are  beaten,  fires  are  lighted  as  the 
centres  of  diabolical  dances  accompanied 
by  frenzied  chants,  incantations  and  ex- 
orcisms are  resorted  to,  the  stomach  of 
the  patient  is  beaten  with  clubs  to  drive 
out  the  supposed  demon,  he  is  subjected 
to  untenable  tortures,  and  often  when 
the  malady  becomes  chronic,  or  is  severe- 
ly infectious,  he  is  carried  to  a mountain 
top  or  river  bank,  supplied  with  a little 
food  and  water  and  is  left  to  die  alone. 

In  the  case  of  women,  the  barbarities 
inflicted  by  those  who  profess  to  attend 
them  in  sickness,  cannot  be  related  in 


5 


such  an  audience.  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  native  midwifery  abounds  in  ignor- 
ant and  brutal  customs,  which  in  thou- 
sands of  cases  produce  life-long  suffer- 
ing, and  in  many,  fatal  results. 

In  all  countries  a belief  in  the  efficacy 
of  certain  idols,  shrines,  stones,  trees  or 
waters  prevails,  and  no  Buddhist,  Hindu 
or  Moslem  would  spend  an  hour  of  the 
day  or  night  without  a charm,  amulet,  or 
talisman,  purchased  from  the  priests, 
round  his  neck  or  arm,  with  the  object 
of  warding  off  sickness. 

The  shrines  of  the  medicine  gods  of  all 
nations  are  sure  of  votaries  and  offerings, 
and  even  in  modern  Japan  the  red  lac- 
quer medicine  god  Binzuree  is  universal- 
ly resorted  to  by  and  for  the  sick,  the 
method  of  invocation  consisting  in  rub- 
bing with  the  finger  that  part  of  the  idol’s 
person  which  corresponds  to  the  afflicted 
part  of  the  patient. 

Of  the  sanitary  and  anti-septic  precau- 
tions required  in  sickness  these  people 
have  no  knowledge,  and  their  wounds. 


6 


whether  natural  or  artificial,  are.  in  the 
hot  weather,  alive  with  maggots. 

The  alleviations  which  in  Christian 
countries  mitigate  the  sufferings  of  the 
dying  are  unknown  to  them,  and  they  re- 
gard death  as  the  triumph  of  the  sup- 
posed demon.  Amidst  beatings  of 
gongs,  drummings,  shoutings  and  incan- 
tations, with  their  dying  thirst  unas- 
suaged, and  with  their  nostrils  plugged 
with  a mixture  of  aromatic  herbs  and 
clay,  or  with  mud  of  sacred  streams,  our 
heathen  brethren  and  sisters  are  passing 
in  an  unending,  ghastly,  reproachful  pro- 
cession into  Ghristless  graves  at  the  rate 
of  forty-three  millions  a year. 

Ghastliest  and  most  solemn  thought, 
that  for  every  minute  in  which  we  have 
been  assembled  here,  eighty-three 
Ghristless  souls  from  death  beds  such  as 
these  have  passed  into  the  presence  of 
their  Judge — and  ours! 

Their  physicial  woes  justly  move  us, 
but  their  Christlessness  and  hopeless- 
ness have  an  infinity  of  piteousness- 


7 


Over  their  sick  beds  no  Divine  Comfort- 
er broods,  no  relation  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  or  the  Brotherhood  of  Christ  has 
reached  their  ears,  or  one  glimmer  of 
that  light  which  He  Who  is  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  life  has  shed  on  the  future 
of  the  human  spirit.  Where  are  our  ag- 
onizing prayers,  where  is  our  heart-brok- 
enness, where  is  our  great  personal  self- 
denial  for  the  heathen? 

“Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and 
mine  eyes  a fountain  of  tears  that  1 
might  weep  day  and  night  for  the  slain,' 
groans  the  prophet  Jeremiah.  When  St. 
Paul  wrote  of  these  “whose  end  is  de- 
struction,” it  was  on  a page  blotted  with 
tears,  and  when  He  Who  alone  knows 
what  destruction  is  beheld  the  city  which 
was  to  reject  Him  His  tears  flowed  over 
its  self-chosen  doom. 

Nearly  all  doors  are  now  open  to  the 
medical  missionary.  Who  will  enter  in. 
of  you  my  Christian  sisters?  The  person 
of  the  Hakim  is  every  where  sacred.  It 
is  the  glorious  work  of  the  missionary 


8 


physician  to  overthrow  those  barbarous 
systems  of  medical  treatment  to  which  I 
have  briefly  alluded,  and  to  substitute 
for  them  the  scientific  methods,  the  skill, 
and  the  suavities  of  European  medicine, 
as  well  as  to  inculcate  tenderness  for 
suffering  and  reverence  for  human  life, 
and  to  our  medical  sisters  is  the  honor 
given  to  enter  the  domestic  bastiles  of 
the  east  with  healing  and  light,  and  to 
make  an  end  by  their  skilled  and  benefi- 
cent methods  of  the  barbarous  practices 
of  native  midwifery,  and  of  the  many 
remediable  sufferings  of  our  own  sex. 

But  it  is  as  the  missionary  physician, 
"the  Hakim  in  Christ’s  likenes,"  "the 
Hakim  with  the  Bible,"  that  the  medical 
missionary  follows  in  His  Master’s  foot- 
steps. He  must  subvert  worse  systems 
even  than  those  of  the  native  treatment 
of  diseases.  In  the  dispensary,  the 
home,  and  especially  in  the  hospital  he 
has  opportunities  which  fall  to  the  lot  of 
no  other  of  awakening  a sense  of  the  dis- 
ease of  sin — of  sin  which  cannot  be 


9 


atoned  for  by  penances,  pilgrimages,  or 
gifts,  or  washed  away  by  ceremonial  ab- 
lutions and  of  gently  opening  the  blind 
eyes  to  the  love  and  atonement  of  Him 
Whose  servant  he  is.  In  Moslem  and 
Buddhist  lands  the  evangelistic  mission- 
ary is  unsought,  unwelcomed,  shunned. 
He  must  create  his  work  by  slow  and 
persevering  toil,  and  at  the  best  he  rare- 
ly reaches  the  undercurrents  of  the 
thoughts  and  life  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  dwells.  In  the  case  of  the 
medical  missionary  the  work  seeks  him, 
claims  him,  pursues  him,  absorbs  him, 
Crowds,  compelled  by  the  grip  of  pain, 
throng  around  him,  and  as  soon  as  his 
stammering  tongue  can  speak  of  Jesus 
his  audience  is  ready  to  listen.  Without 
effort  he  learns  the  inner  lives,  the  relig- 
ious ideas,  the  superstitions,  the  social 
difficulties,  criticisms  on  Christianity, 
the  pressure  of  circumstances,  the  ig- 
norance and  the  craving  of  all  classes, 
and  some  at  least,  of  those  who  have 
learned  to  love  and  trust  the  servant. 


10 


are  won  to  love  and  trust  the  Master. 

In  a survey  of  many  mission  fields,  and 
of  vast,  unevangelized  regions,  especially 
in  Asia,  where  Christianity  comes  into 
contact  with  Islam,  and  the  higher  phil- 
osophical non-Christian  systems,  I have 
come  to  think  that  the  multiplication  of 
male  and  female  medical  missionaries  is 
the  most  important  work  in  connection 
with  the  missions  which  lies  before  the 
church,  as  well  as  the  most  blessed  form 
of  missionary  effort  to  which  young  men 
and  women  who  are  consecrated  to  for- 
eign service  can  aspire. 

Bodily  suffering  and  spiritual  blind- 
ness are  calling  with  an  exceeding  bitter 
cry  for  the  life-work  of  consecrated  men 
and  women  but  the  need  can  be  met  by 
the  consecrated  alone. 

For  the  half-hearted,  the  indolent,  the 
selfish,  the  doubting,  and  the  unloving, 
there  is  no  call  and  no  room.  There 
must  be  the  "double  qualification," — in- 
tense love  to  Christ,  and  intense  love 
for  those  for  whom  He  died. 


11 


In  conclusion,  1 desire  to  emphasize 
my  unqualified  testimony  to  the  value 
and  power  of  medical  missions.  To  my 
thinking  none  follow  more  closely  in  the 
Master’s  footprints  than  the  medical 
missionary,  and  in  no  work  are  the  high- 
er teachings  of  Christianity  more  legible 
and  easily  recognized.  The  true  mis- 
sionary-doctor witnesses  by  his  life- 
work  to  Christ  the  Healer,  and  is  an 
epistle  of  Christ,  translating  Christ’s  love 
and  teaching,  into  object  lessons  which 
all  can  understand. 

Once  again  the  lame  walk,  the  deaf 
hear,  the  blind  see,  to  the  poor  the  Gos- 
pel is  preached,  and  if  the  lepers  are  not 
cleansed,  the  miseries  of  their  condition 
are  greatly  mitigated. 

In  looking  back  upon  medical  missions 
in  different  parts  of  the  world,  I cannot 
recall  one  where  the  physician  was 
truly  “a  Hakim  in  Christ's  likeness” 
which  was  not  healing,  helping,  blessing, 
making  an  end  of  much  of  the  cruelty 
which  proceeds  from  ignorance,  soften- 


12 


ing  prejudice  against  Christianity,  open- 
ing closed  doors  for  the  Gospel,  and 
while  pointing  to  the  cross  which  is  ele- 
vated for  “the  healing  of  the  nations,” 
telling  in  every  work  of  love  and  of  con- 
secrated skill  of  the  infinite  compassions 
of  Him  Who  came  "not  to  destroy  men's 
lives  but  to  save  them.” 


IVoman's  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Interior, 
Room  £2 j,  40  Dearborn  St.,  Chicago,  III, 


